My cute hubby...

So I asked Mark to pick up some grapes and some chips from the store to go along with the Sloppy Jo's I was making for dinner last night. When he got home he made a big deal about some items in one of the sacks. He said "I bought something today for someone in our family that kind of gets forgotten about" (I knew he wasn't meaning me or the kids because he brings us home treats ALL the time) so my immediate guess was Toby the cat. I had no sooner said his name when Mark pulled out some cans of moist cat food and a catnip toy just for our furry little family member. I thought this was so sweet. Cuter still was when I went to put something in his wallet later that night and found his little post-it shopping list inside. It read:

Chips
Grapes
Bananas
Oranges
Cat food and toy

How funny that it wasn't even a last minute decision, but was carefully planned out. Toby REALLY appreciated it. So much so in fact that we had to take the catnip toy away after about 30 seconds. He was going CRAZY with it. I don't think he's ever had a "drugged-up" toy before. Poor kitty.

Smarter than a 3rd grader?

After Joshua completed his homework tonight I asked him to bring it to me so that I could correct it. He said "okay...oh, and I'll get the calculator for you too".....

So sad...so very very sad.

Famous!

Well....kind of.... :) for those of you that get catalogs from the "Oriental Trading Company" and happened to get their new one for spring 2008, I'd like you to go to pg. 44 lower left hand corner and read the name of the "sample" personalized pencils. For those of you without a catalog here's a picture:
Yep, our little Sam is famous, at least his name is! This has actually been the "name" on the pencils on every catalog I've received from them since Sam was an infant. A friend of mine noticed it first in her catalog forever ago and brought it to me to check it out. We've always thought it was so funny that his exact name is printed on them with the exact spelling and everything...I mean seriously, it's not like it's a hugely popular name! We thought it would be fun to call and order him some pencils with that name, just to see if they said anything, we could just tell them to send us the exact pencils from the photo. HAHA!

On a slightly similar note, this catalog is killing me with it's darling party stuff. I'm now convinced that Sam needs to have a "luau" party and Gabe needs to have a "Beach Monkey" party this year for the big 6 and 3. SO FUN!!

Look who's waving Bye-Bye!

Will officially learned to wave Bye-Bye a few weeks ago. We couldn't be more proud. He really tries to mimick everything we do lately which seems to be pretty early if you ask me, I think he's just dying to catch up to his big brothers already! I'm also convinced I've taught him to sign "more" but I know that noone will believe me until I get it on tape, I don't think he has any idea what he's doing, but he puts his hands together just like I do when I sign it! It is so funny! :) He's SO cute and awkward when waving, his whole arm gets in on the act and then his fingers go straight to his mouth. I included a video for your viewing pleasure but I'll warn you, it involves an overkill amount of me saying bye-bye in an annoying sing-song voice (do I REALLY sound like that?!), a telephone interruption, and an underwear clad 2 year old. I couldn't get the baby to wave for ANYTHING the second time around, but at least Gabe provides us with some entertainment at the end!

I'm sorry...

I was on the phone with Charlotte the other day when I walked into the front room and onto this scene...

Apparently, Sam had decided to clean up the front room by placing everything that was on the floor on top of Will as he was trying to enjoy his bottle. To break it down for you, he had a HUGE rattle (meant for the tray of a highchair) in one hand, a dinosaur in the other, another rattle between his head and left hand, a hat "laying" on top of his head, a Mickey Mouse bracelet around his right wrist (under the huge rattle) a tiny blanket and Gabe's sippy cup all piled on top of him. All I could think to say was "I'm sorry, baby" ....Poor little 4th child. :) Seriously though, these pictures might go down as my favorite of 2008. They absolutely CRACK me up!

Family Night at the Discovery Gateway

I started this post yesterday knowing that we'd be going to the Gateway last night for FHE. They have a Children's Museum there and until last Thursday the boys and I had never been. We had the chance to go with a friend and her boys last week and the kids had SUCH a blast. I ended up buying a 6 month pass because it was only $25 more than what we were paying to get in anyway and now we can go for 6 months. The Gateway is a really fun outdoor shopping mall. Our favorite thing about it is that it has an awesome fountain in the summer that shoots water from the ground and is set to music. The boys LOVE it and we usually go at least 3 times while the boys are on summer vacation. Anyway, we had so much fun last week that we wanted to take Mark there to join in the fun with us. I planned on taking lots of pictures but unfortunately my camera batteries died after my 2nd picture. So cookie faced boys are the only pictures I have to share. :) We had a blast, it's kind of like entering a new world where everything is set to "kids" size and the adults are the minority. There is so much to do and explore, and you can just see their little minds soaking everything up. We were all so tired by the time we got home that everyone went straight to bed. All in all, it was a great night!

Easter Sunday

Happy Easter everyone!! I hope you all had a wonderful day! Ours got off to a bit of a rocky start, but got lots better as the day went on. Poor Sam woke up in the middle of the night with a belly ache and threw up twice. Ugh. Poor guy! He did fall back to sleep though and felt a lot better in the morning thank goodness. Joshua was up bright and early and dashed in our room to ask if he could begin "the hunt". Since we hadn't gotten much sleep the night before we begged him for a few extra minutes of rest. He crawled into bed with us and russled about until we decided it just wasn't worth it to try to sleep any longer. Especially after Joshua - CONVINCED that Gabe had left his room - went out to find him, only to burst into his room and discover he hadn't gone anywhere afterall and was still sleeping....well WAS still sleeping until the bursting into the room incident. Ah, well....church begins at nine so we DID need to start getting things going. Last night Gabe and I discussed the Easter Bunny and where he thought the furry guy would hide his basket. We thought maybe by the piano, so that is the first place that Gabe went and GUESS WHAT?! There his basket was! He was the first to find his, followed closely by Will who found his on the fireplace. Josh and Sam had high hopes that their baskets would be hidden in very hard to find places so it took them quite awhile to find theirs. Joshua finally found his in the guest bathroom bathtub/shower and Sam (with a little prompting, and help from Gabe and Josh who happened to have discovered it earlier) found his inside the t.v. armoire. Joshua loved his Pokemon board game and his treats, Sam loved his little Ben10 guy and spiderman playdough mold, Gabe loved his new octopus playdough set (I think mom was more excited about this than anyone else...it looks like SO much fun! - I'm really not being sarcastic, it looks DARLING and I am REALLY excited to play with it...with the boys, of course..) :) And Will loved his little monkey rattle and bunny rattle. Mom and Dad enjoyed a few new shirts and lots of treats. It was so fun to wake up to a house full of surprises this morning!

We quickly made some toaster waffles for breakfast and hurried to get ready for church. The boys looked so handsome, Joshua in his Navy blue suit, Sam in his spring sweater (Joshua's from a few years ago), Gabe in his spring sweater and blue/yellow checkered shirt(Sam's from a few years ago) and Will in his blue/yellow checkered shirt (Gabe's from a few years ago). About 2 seconds from returning home the boys had already changed into play clothes much to my dismay. I wanted to get a picture first. Grr. oh well, we still have a lot of spring left, thank goodness. I'm sure I'll have another chance. Church was wonderful. Josh and Sam were really excited to sing their easter songs to us. Sam mentioned to me twice that he "knew ALL the words to the song" and was going to show me and wanted to make sure that I was paying VERY close attention. They sang "I feel my Savior's love" and "Did Jesus really live again" As soon as they started singing I started to tear up. I'm a TOTAL sap when it comes to children singing, ESPECIALLY when those children belong to me. What brought the tears the most was watching little Sam with his eyes FIXED on me, making sure I was watching him sing every word. I didn't dare take my eyes away from his, and only had a chance to glance at Joshua once or twice which worked out fine since Joshua wasn't worried about me at all and was just excited to be part of the scene. All I could think about was how lucky I was to have a little boy up there that cared more about singing to me at that moment than anything else and how I needed to cherish every second of it because that little boy is going to grow up SO FAST! I absolutely LOVE this time in our lives with these amazing little boys. They really seem to be at the perfect ages right now and sometimes I wish I could just freeze time altogether for awhile.

We had a wonderful Easter program, with beautiful testimonies of Christ, and the boys were SO good. It couldn't have been better. We're starting to cut the amount of "things" we're bringing to the meetings little by little each week. We're down to zero snacks, a Friend magazine, a few small books for Gabe and a bottle for Will. It's working out great, we're finding out that less is DEFINITELY more as everyone seems to be getting a little more out of the lessons/talks.

We came home and hurried to grab a light lunch and put the littles to bed so we could begin preparing our Easter dinner. We had the Birschbach's over along with Brandon's girlfriend Vanessa and her two sisters. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner of Ham, cheesy potatoes, two salads, two jello salads, rolls and cake. We played a game called "Boxers or Brief's" which was fun, except that I lost terribly. We had a great time playing and chatting. It was fun to have everyone here. Shar and I missed our mom who was working in Phoenix today, but we have high hopes of being with her next year if things work out like they should. All in all, it was a great day. Tomorrow is supposed to be SIXTY THREE degrees which I am absolutely PSYCHED about. I'm hoping it will be enough to get me through the days at the end of the week that have a "chance of snow" ERGH. I am SO TIRED OF stinking SNOW! Tomorrow is the last day of the boys' spring break so we are lucky that it is going to be so warm! We hope you all had a WONDERFUL Easter Sunday!!!